臺灣WiMAX 執照拍賣設計及其科技政策背景分析

WiMAX License Auction in Taiwan —Technology Policy and Auction Design

因應資通訊產業長期發展規劃之需要，行政院科技顧問組NICI 小組於2005提出WiMAX 發展藍圖。此科技政策過程展現政府單位跨部會合作的能力，包含國科會、行政院科技顧問組、NICI、經濟部、NCC 等單位接續參與政策制訂及執行。當時技術尚未成熟，也還沒有確定的商業模式，故WiMAX 釋照拍賣深具特殊性。為配合政府產業政策，NCC 希望鼓勵新廠商加入並且標價不要過高，在此原則下NCC 設計出十分特殊的拍賣設計。然而在業者競標4G 門票的心態下，平均得標乘數比值高達7%，是2G 執照特許費2% 的3.5 倍，似乎並未達成降低廠商負擔之目標。WiMAX 拍賣包含許多前所未見的特殊設計，其中部分規定尚有改善空間，例如實質審查階段無法避免「選美比賽」的批評，優先執照的選取方法可能有策略操作空間，參與業者對單回合拍賣沒有一致的認知，以及最後一回合的開標方式對暫時得標者較有利等。拍賣設計應以學術理論為基礎並輔以實驗佐證，WiMAX 之拍賣設計與文獻理論略有相關者是對拍賣回合數加以限制。本研究並以實驗方法檢驗外生限制回合數拍賣與國際通用SMR 拍賣之差異，藉以說明拍賣設計應有的政策流程。

The government in Taiwan promoted the WiMAX standard in 2005, andleaped boldly into an unknown future. This was a complex policy maneuver,since it required coordinating efforts from many government units. The variousbranches of the Executive Yuan were responsible for initiating the new technology.The main concern of the Ministry of Economic Affairs was manufacturingand exporting ICT products, and the NCC was responsible for spectrummanagement and awarding WiMAX licenses. At that time, there were no internationalstandards and no business models for WiMAX technology, so themain policy goal of the license auction was to promote this new technology,and hence the auction design was quite particular.This paper analyzes the implications of the WiMAX auction design. Inorder to ease the burdens for new entrants, the bids were placed not in monetaryamount but in percentages of sales. However, the average of winning bidswas 7%, which was quite high compared with the 2% for 2G licenses. The limited-round design was also quite particular, and there was a crucial proposalreview stage eliminating some bidders, so to the surprise of many, the actualauction was a single round.It is almost an international standard to test auction designs with experimentalstudies. In order to demonstrate the proper policy formulation procedures, weconducted experiments to compare the efficiency of a standard simultaneousmulti-round auction with the limited round design of the WiMAX auction.